including an ampersand (&) in the site title

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  oldbaileytim · Member · Jun 9, 2015 at 10:10 am

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  Hello,
  THIS IS NOT ABOUT THE AMPERSAND THEME – it’s about punctuation!
  Does anyone know, please, if I will have problems if I include an ampersand (&) in the site title of my site/blog? Or if I include it anywhere else on the site, in a page title, for example? I did include it in a page title and when I went back to edit the page, the ampersand had been replaced by letters and punctuation (I can’t remember what they are, but I have seen them before on other sites etc; there are something like three letters followed by a semi-colon). However, when I previewed the page, the ampersand was there, no problem. I could use ‘and’ to be on the safe side, but & looks so much cooler!
  Thanks to anyone who can help.

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  simplysaru · Staff · Jun 9, 2015 at 5:34 pm

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  hi,
  Using an ampersand in your title isn’t recommended. You might loose some search engine traffic. You can use them in your posts and pages, but in your titles. You may want to read the 5th point in the article. http://www.problogger.net/archives/2013/07/22/5-tips-to-writing-irresistibly-clickable-blog-titles/

  I did include it in a page title and when I went back to edit the page, the ampersand had been replaced by letters and punctuation (I can’t remember what they are, but I have seen them before on other sites etc; there are something like three letters followed by a semi-colon).

  What you have seen while editing must be encoding of the ampersand in html.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampersand#Encoding_and_display.
  You have nothing to worry about the encoding as such. They will be taken care by WordPress while publishing the page.

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  timethief · Member · Jun 9, 2015 at 5:53 pm

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  Please go here > Dashboard > Settings > Writing
  http://oldbaileytim.wordpress.com/wp-admin/options-writing.php
  and enable this setting:

  Formatting
  _ WordPress should correct invalidly nested XHTML automatically
  “save changes”

  Would I ever include an ampersand in a site title? No way! And, my blog is, without doubt, one cool site.

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  timethief · Member · Jun 9, 2015 at 5:57 pm

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  See also:
  Avoid Special Character Use in Titles and Tags
  Top 5 Site Title Tag Tips
  Creating an effective blog tagline

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  galois · Member · Jun 9, 2015 at 5:59 pm

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  Hi there.
  http://old-bailey.com/ is not hoted by WordPress.com:

  old-bailey.com is hosted by Intervision Snap of old-bailey.com
  Hosting provider: Intervision
  WHOIS: Click Here
  IP Address: 199.58.109.186
  Name Servers:
  ns2.inhost.com
  ns1.inhost.com

  http://www.whoishostingthis.com/?q=old-bailey.com

  This forum is only for blogs/sites hosted by WordPress.com
  WordPress.COM and WordPress.ORG are completely separate and different http://support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/

  And you should ask in the WordPress.org forum.
  http://wordpress.org/support/
  or your hosting support.

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  timethief · Member · Jun 9, 2015 at 5:59 pm

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  Oh NERTS! I just clicked into http://old-bailey.com/ and it’s not even hosted by WordPress.COM. Without doubt you are posting to the wrong support forum.

  WordPress.COM and WordPress.ORG are completely separate and have different username accounts, logins, features, run different versions of some themes with the same names, and have separate support documentation and separate support forums. Read the differences here http://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/

  If you don’t have a username account at WordPress.ORG and need support for that site in the future and if you do not have a WordPress.ORG account, then click http://wordpress.org/support/ and register one on the top right hand corner of the page that opens, so you can post to the support forums there.

  Register an account https://wordpress.org/support/register.php
  Resetting your WordPress.ORG password http://codex.wordpress.org/Resetting_Your_Password
  WordPress.org support docs are at https://codex.wordpress.org/Main_Page

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  galois · Member · Jun 9, 2015 at 5:59 pm

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  TT: It’s not a WordPress.com site. ;)

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  timethief · Member · Jun 9, 2015 at 6:00 pm

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  @galois
  I made the classic error of not checking the hosting right up front.

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  galois · Member · Jun 9, 2015 at 6:02 pm

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  I made the classic error…

  Yep, It’s a classic for all of us. :)

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  timethief · Member · Jun 9, 2015 at 6:25 pm

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  simplysaru missed it too and I made the assumption that he had checked.

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  simplysaru · Staff · Jun 9, 2015 at 6:26 pm

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  I just looked at their URL “http://oldbaileytim.wordpress.com” and didn’t bother checking the site, since the question didn’t warrant it.

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  timethief · Member · Jun 9, 2015 at 6:37 pm

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  @simplysaru
  Hi there,
  For the most accurate help IMO we Volunteers ought to automatically take 4 steps prior to answering any thread.

  1. Confirm the URL and determine where the blog is hosted.
  2. Click the member link under the username to determine if the thread is a duplicate.
  3. Use tag search to locate correct answers provided by Volunteers and Staff in similar threads.
  4. Use Google search for the same purpose.
  5. Post our own response or backlink to an accurate response we uncovered when searching.

  Normally, I take those steps prior to responding in any thread. However, I have answered questions here for 9 years, I multitask from my business and when it is busy I fail to take all of those steps.

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  oldbaileytim · Member · Jun 9, 2015 at 10:24 pm

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  Thanks for the advice on ampersands. Long story but it doesn’t matter whether or not it will affect search traffic etc; I just don’t want it to look bad when the site is up and working. (In fact, my Hotmail emails notifiying me of your replies reproduces my original ampersand symbol thus: (&) in the subject line!) As for the site not being a WordPress.com one, that’s true – the original site isn’t, but I’m creating a replacement, on WordPress.com, and that’s the one where I’m thinking of including an ampersand. However, as it’s not my site but belongs to a friend, I didn’t think it was my place to give the name/link etc, and I feel really bad now for putting his old site in a public arena. If I’d realised this would happen, I would have communicated privately with the support people (who, by the way, have been really helpful over other issues – thanks, Grzegorz, if you ever read this!)
  Thanks again for your replies; I will have a serious re-think now about the ampersand.

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  timethief · Member · Jun 9, 2015 at 10:29 pm

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  However, as it’s not my site but belongs to a friend, I didn’t think it was my place to give the name/link etc, and I feel really bad now for putting his old site in a public arena. If I’d realised this would happen, I would have communicated privately with the support people (who, by the way, have been really helpful over other issues – thanks, Grzegorz, if you ever read this!)
  Thanks again for your replies; I will have a serious re-think now about the ampersand.

  Hi again,
  I’m glad what we provided above was helpful.

  All support docs are at http://support.wordpress.com
  Type help getting support into the searchbox and click
  https://en.support.wordpress.com/?s=help+getting+support
  Results https://en.support.wordpress.com/help-support-options/

  There is no phone support. In addition to support options linked to above we can email
  help@wordpress.com
  or
  support@wordpress.com
  but it takes longer if we do that.

  Best wishes with your project.